Nepal Maoists decided to discharge 4,000 fighters from guerrilla

The 4,000 combatants of the once underground People's Liberation Army (PLA) comprise mostly child soldiers recruited in violation of international covenants and others illegally roped in after the peace pact in 2006.

A special committee formed of representatives from Nepal's four major parties and headed by Maoist Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda himself held its first working meeting late Thursday to decide to discharge 4,000 combatants and begin the contentious task of merging the remaining PLA soldiers with the state army.

'Nearly 4,000 fighters, mostly minors and illegal recruits, will be discharged from the cantonments,' said former finance minister Ram Sharan Mahat, who is a member of the Special Committee for Integration and Rehabilitation of Maoist Combatants.

After the Maoists ended their 'People's War' and the UN was invited to assist in the peace negotiations, the PLA was barracked in 28 camps under the world body's supervision and a headcount of the rebel soldiers and their weapons started.

The UN verification weeded out the illegal recruits in the nearly 30,000-strong PLA troops assembled in the barracks, leaving only about 19,000 fighters who could qualify to join the state army.

Though the verification also found there were nearly 3,000 child soldiers and another 1,000 late recruits, the Maoists had been dragging their feet on giving these disqualified fighters the honourable discharge they had agreed to in the peace pact.

The delay made the UN express repeated concern. In December, Radhika Coomaraswamy, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's special representative for children and armed conflict, flew down to Nepal to discuss the release of the minors in the cantonments with the Prime Minister.